Why select and start?

Question

From the NES up until the seventh generation of video games, video game controllers have featured a "Start" button and some these platforms had a "select" button. The select button hardly seems to be used these days, and the start button always pauses the game. Why are these buttons labeled "Start" and "Select"?

Answer

"Start" would be used to start the game from the Title Screen. "Select" would be used to select from the options presented in the start menu (such as 1 or 2 players). Some early games actually didn't use the directional pad at the start menu, so the only thing that worked was the Select button.

Start also became a de-facto pause button because interrupting the game is separate from the normal activity of the game. This matches its utility in starting the game as "administrative" in nature. This is also probably why they're kept separate from the "face" buttons (A + B).

Since most option prompts in later games use D-Pads or joysticks to go through a lot more options, the usage of Select has indeed fallen out of usage. On the consoles where it does still exist, it's mostly used as a secondary administrative button, doing things that aren't on the level of face buttons in importance, but also not as high as Start.

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What's the earliest third-person action game with a major escort component?

Question

ICO set a major precedent for the escort archetype, as both Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and later Resident Evil 4 made excellent use of support characters who needed to be protected and escorted, but who had mission-critical abilities of their own. Was ICO the first, though? What's the earliest game in which the player's character escorts a vulnerable NPC through an obstacle-littered landscape which contains objectives that can only be achieved by employing the NPC's abilities?

Answer

Oldest example I can think of is Whistler's Brother. Which isn't polygonal, but is 3rd person. And at '1984' has an auspicious birth year.

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What's a good source to view the history of gameplay changes made to Starcraft 2 so far?

Question

Wondering if anyone can link me to a good source page or archive of the change logs from the start of the Starcraft 2 Beta up to currently for changes that have been made to balance the game. For example, 'increased zerglings speed by...', etc.

Answer

Personally I find the Starcraft Wiki a good resource for this

• Starcraft
• Starcraft 2 Beta
• Starcraft 2

Here is an example (taken from beta patch 15)

Balance Changes

TERRAN

• Hellion
  • Weapon upgrade bonus decreased from 1 (+1 Light) to 1.
• Reaper
  • Nitro Packs research cost decreased from 100/100 to 50/50.
• Siege Tank
  • Siege Mode damage decreased from 60 to 50.
• Thor
  • Anti-air weapon upgrade bonus decreased from 1 (+1 Light) to 1.

ZERG

• Brood Lord
  • Weapon upgrade bonus decreased from 3 to 2.

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What was the first appearance of 3D models of humans or vehicles in a video game?

Question

When and where was the first 3D model of a human/vehicle implemented in games? Can you give a link to an image and/or an article?

Answer

One of the earliest 3D games with vehicles I remember was Battlezone (from 1980) where the enemy tanks, and in fact everything else, were rendered in wire frame, as this screen shot (taken from Wikipedia) shows.

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Which was the first game with bullet-time?

Question

The first game I played, which had bullet-time, was Max Payne. Was there any game before that to have a similar feature?

Answer

Max Payne was released in 2001, but in 1997 MDK was the first game to incorporate bullet time as a game mechanic.

Unlike in Max Payne, where bullet time was your ability to slow time temporarily and play with in it, MDK only used bullet time as a mechanism to follow sniper shots. While this too would be repeated in other games (including Max Payne) it first appeared in Shiny's classic MDK.

In 1999 Unreal tournament introduced "bubbles" which would slow time causing the bullet time effect (in the same manner as Max Payne but not at the user's direct control).

Later that year Requiem: Avenging Angel would provide for a more direct control over slowing down time.

No matter how you slice it, Max Payne was not the first game to have bullet time.

To continue the history lesson:

• First bullet captured in motion on film: MIT professor Doc Edgerton in the 1940s
• First televised Bullet Time: 1966 Japanese anime series Speed Racer
• First live action Bullet Time: 1985 Music Video Midnight Mover

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